Sign of the Snake
by JesusInABottle
Summary: This is how angsty HP acts.


_I have never done this before, so this is really just to try it out. While Harry Potter is wonderful and lovable, he is unrealistic, having been brought up with such angst. Please review...I'm not sure where I'm going with this, so I don't know if it will be worthwhile. Much of it is my own, but the address to the letter is from SS pg 34, and the voices heard in the dream come from PoA pg. 179._

Chapter 1: The Boy Who Died

"_Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"_

"_Stand aside, you silly girl…stand aside, now...."_

"_Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead—"_

Harry awoke abruptly but was groggy. Soon he was asleep again, and wouldn't remember his ominous dream—he often had it and spent much of his time trying to remember the dream and the green light that would flash across his memory. He could never remember though, and each time he strained his memory, he felt himself sinking somehow. The older he had gotten, the more he had regressed into anger, the capricious innocence of childhood dying in him early. He never slept well, always awoken by this frustrating dream, and also by—

"Harry! Get up, you nasty boy!" Harry groaned, but did not stir. "Get up!" Slowly his aunt's voice roused him. He hated her with every fiber of his being. Grumbling about the lack of sleep, he got up and dressed.

"About time!" was the sharp voice that greeted him as he entered the kitchen. He mumbled curses at her under his breath, but her sharp ears caught the words.

"Don't you talk back to me! It was good of Vernon and I to take you! We could just as quickly send you away, and then you'd have no where to go."

"Then why don't you? That'd be bloody brilliant! Not living with you to disrupt me all the time!" Before he knew it, Harry was yelling at Petunia. "YOU AND UNCLE VERNON DON'T NEED TO KEEP ME! YOU THINK I'D RATHER LIVE IN THIS BLOODY HELL THAN WITH SOMEONE WHO WANTS ME?! WHY DID YOU TAKE ME IF—"

"DON'T YOU YELL AT ME—"

"IF YOU ARE JUST GOING TO TREAT ME LIKE IM SH—"

"VERNON! VERNON!"

Vernon came running at Petunia's cries, and at his purple-faced anger, Harry shut up. Glowering, he fried the bacon for Dudley's Birthday. Why did he care if it burnt? he asked himself. It didn't matter anyway; they couldn't hurt him more than they already did. As he was about to piss off and let the bacon burn, Dudley came in, banging his Smelting stick against the furniture.

"Dinky Duddydums!" Petunia crooned. "How is my Diddykins on his special day?"

Now trapped in the kitchen by Dudley's substantial bulk in the doorway, Harry began to feel slightly ill with his aunt's praises to "her little boy."

Just then, the mail came through the door, and Harry received a smarting rap on his head and was told to get it. Grumbling, he obliged. That was when he saw it; that enigmatic letter—

Mr. H. Potter

The Cupboard under the Stairs

4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging

Surrey

He picked it up in astonishment, wondering who possibly could have written him, who possibly could know where he slept. Uncle Vernon called to him, asking him what took so long, but he barely heard the words. He began opening the letter, as his uncle came in to hurry him along. Seeing his uncle go pale, he grinned maliciously as he opened it.

"DON'T YOU DARE OPEN THAT FUCKING LETTER!" burst out of Vernon's mouth as he made a desperate lunge for it. Harry, ignoring the obscenities pouring from his uncle, continued to unfurl the heavy parchment. His mind registered one thing before a fist came to the side of his head and everything went black: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

_A flash of green light._

"_Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"_

And Harry was awake, his head feeling like it had just been split open. It took a moment for him to register where he was, namely lying on cold tile with a view of the ceiling. Then it came back to him, and he jumped up. His head gave a pound and down he fell. That did not stop him, using the doorknob to pull himself up, he shouted "GIVE ME MY LETTER VERNON!" There was no reply. "I WANT MY BLOODY LETTER!" Again the only sound was that of ringing silence. Vernon had gotten the shitty letter, he knew it now. Dashing out the front door, he registered that the perfectly manicured lawn and driveway were empty. They had left him there.

He was livid, filled with that rage that had become a warm companion, always bubbling right under the surface. Storming around the house, he broke the vases and ornaments, wishing he had someone to destroy them, some way to shake their comfortable suburban lives.


End file.
